Unifil warns any attack on peacekeepers violates international law after two fall from observation tower under fire

Two UN peacekeepers in Lebanon have been wounded by Israeli fire, the mission said on Thursday, as Israel’s military ground operations in the country continued.

In a statement, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said two of its members were wounded after a Merkava tank fired towards an observation tower at Unifil headquarters in Naqoura, “directly hitting it and causing them to fall”.

“[Israeli] soldiers also fired on UN position (UNP) 1-31 in Labbouneh, hitting the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, and damaging vehicles and a communications system,” said the peacekeeping mission.

“An IDF drone was observed flying inside the UN position up to the bunker entrance.”

Israeli attacks in Lebanon over the past month, including a bombing campaign and ground invasion, have killed over 1,200 people and displaced one million.

    • JustinEnglish
      56•1 month ago

      Don’t forget that Israeli affiliated militias assassinated their UN negotiator in 1948.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte

      The leader of the assassination plot was the future founder of the modern Likud party and future prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir. He lead the Likud party until 1993 when Netanyahu took over. His Wikipedia page is absolutely fucked.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Shamir

      This and their attacks on the UNRWA are far from the first times Israel has been at war with the UN.

  • @Foni@lemm.eeEnglish
    59•1 month ago

    I’m sure the US will protest this time with real energy and will then send another billion in military equipment.

      • @sorval_the_eeter@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11•1 month ago

        Ireland is vocal about the Palestines peoples human rights, which has angered Israel greatly. They are also not a member of NATO.

        What a strange coincidence that it’d be Irish peacekeepers who were attacked.

        • @Frog@lemmy.caEnglish
          3•1 month ago

          Does that matter? They killed an American protestor. Israel killed hundreds of other humanitarians. Israel even killed their own citizens.

          It is all crazy.

    • @sorval_the_eeter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5•1 month ago

      I’m sure the US will protest this time with real energy

      Are you thinking ‘sternly worded memo’ or ‘a leak that Biden is outraged behind the scenes’, but not officially? Those seem extreme.

      How about one or all 3 of these:

      1. We order 100 pizzas to the Netenyahu family house that they didnt even order themselves, and leak a photo of Biden on the phone to the media. We’ll pay for those pizzas of course.
      2. We could also send a prepaid hot stone masseuse to their home who also had a mildly questionable political bumper sticker on their car.
      3. We could send the far right Israel government leaders on a luxury vacation, but ensure that the little bottles of alchohol in first class on the plane are extra small sized. I’ve never been in first class myself, but I can imagine that would be extremely frustrating.
    • @pickman_model@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      35•1 month ago

      Maybe they’re using the tried-and-tested strategy of targeting UN forces to make them leave. It happened in Rwanda too, they killed those Belgian peacekeepers and then Belgium and France pulled out. Shortly after that, the Rwandan start their genocide. At least the Israelis seem to have just wounded the peacekeepers, unlike the Rwandan, who hacked the Belgian with machetes. Nevertheless, it doesn’t look very promising.

          • acargitzEnglish
            9•1 month ago

            Because as usual religion can be used to argue for as well as against a political question. The only self coherent framework that has as its logical conclusion Israeli policy is nationalism.

            Edit: plus, a nationalist explanatory framework is least susceptible to the moral hazard of anti-Semitism. Israeli policy is not exceptional, it’s as banal as Serbian or Azerbaijani ethnic nationalism, revanchism, jingoism and bigotry.

          • @Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            5•1 month ago

            Zionism is a Settler Colonialist Project. Israel has never represented all Jewish people and never will, nor are it’s actions done to benefit all Jewish people. The conflation is itself antisemitic. Adi Callai, an Israeli, does a great analysis of how Antisemitism has been weaponized (see 29:01) by Zionism during its history.

            Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian, discusses it more in his book

              • @Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
                0•1 month ago

                Dude, stop. Conflating the two is responsible for genuine Antisemitism. Antisemites love the conflation because they can then attribute all the war crimes and political influence of Israel to all Jewish people, in order to justify their own antisemitic conspiracy theories. It is genuinely responsible for a rise in hate crimes abroad. Zionism is a form of Fascism that weaponizes antisemitism as a shield for it’s actions.

      • @jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
        7•1 month ago

        Fucking no. Israel does not represent judiasm. Jews everywhere disavow them. Zionism is not Jewish.

        Claiming that this is Jewish is antisemitism from both Israel and you.

        This is about land, not religion.

        • @kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
          2•1 month ago

          This is about land,

          Wars always are.

          But warring factions almost always use the religion of the people as a strong lever and excuse in order to maintain the support of those people for the war effort.

          This is no different. There have been strong and influential factions (on both sides of the conflict) who have claimed that the piece of dirt they’re fighting over is holy land to both of the religions represented.

  • @sorval_the_eeter@lemmy.worldEnglish
    37•1 month ago

    the countires those soldiers are from should bring in some jets and take care of that problem. Putitng up with being shot by far right wing fascists is some shameful bullshit.

    • @spirinolas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5•1 month ago

      Fact is Israel will only stop when they are made to stop. They will keep pushing it farther and farther until they fuck up and mess with someone able to hurt them bad. Until then they are untouchable and it might be a long time. But Israel has already doomed its own long-term existence, they’re just too dumb to see it.

      My money is on them pulling a military stunt, accidental or not involving Turkye and then finding out. Turkye has the means to make them shit their breaches and there’s no way in hell the US is doing anything militarily against them and risking loosing a key member of NATO to Russia. If Turkye closes the Bosphorus, the Bosphorus stays closed and nobody has the means to forcibly open it short of using nukes.

    • @BallsandBayonetsEnglish
      4•1 month ago

      I don’t think anyone on the UN is ready to declare war on the United States, no matter how much we deserve it.

      • aquafunkalisticbootywhapEnglish
        0•1 month ago

        oh how nice it would be to see the world unite as one just to take us (the USA) down a peg. I feel like russia and china are really dropping the ball lately

        oh, wait lol theyre also run by egomaniacal baffoons :shrug:

        • @4lan@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1•1 month ago

          That’s not how our wars are fought now. We are already in a war with China over the global economy. We are so dependent on them that they could cripple us at the snap of a finger.

          Go gander around your home and look at the labels on all of your products, even the ones designed in the US were made in China (your phone and computer)

  • Don EscobarEnglish
    17•1 month ago

    I’m sure the UN peacekeepers were hanging around hospitals, schools and/or Palestinians

      • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6•1 month ago

        Downvote the bot? They do in every thread, form of protest against it from what I’ve read. They don’t like 1 person with a bias generating a bases for everyone as to whether a source is legitimate, as it could skew unfamiliar people to believe what isn’t true. Also, it’s frame of left/right is bias towards a localized perception from their area, not a global perception.

  • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
    -32•1 month ago

    Why are they even there?

    From a real news source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-peacekeepers-lebanon-say-we-are-staying-despite-israeli-attacks-2024-10-10/

    UNIFIL is mandated by the Security Council to help the Lebanese army keep the country’s south free of weapons and armed personnel other than those of the state. That has sparked friction with Hezbollah, which effectively controls the area.

    1. They’re supposed to be Peacekeepers not Peace Makers. There’s a war happening and usually Peacekeepers leave the area when it becomes an active war.

    2. Their mission was to find Hezbollah weapons… well it seems they weren’t all that effective at doing that mission. Anyway, the IDF will remove those weapons for them. So they no longer have a mission to be there to do.

    This is extremely incompetent on the part of the UN. It’s a struggle for the UN to get countries to volunteer soldiers to be UN Peacekeepers. The UN using Peacekeepers as human shields isn’t going to help in that. Peacekeepers serve an important function, and the UN putting them in unnecessary danger because it’s upset at Israel is completely irresponsible.

    • @Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      11•1 month ago

      Israel targeting Civilians and UN personnel/facilities with the justification of ‘human shields’ is nothing new.

      • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
        -2•1 month ago

        Yeah they’re soldiers, they follow orders. The UN leadership is abdicating it’s responsibility to ensure the safety of the soldiers that countries have generously provided them. So they’re having Peacekeepers that no longer have a missions stay in an obvious warzone because why? The leadership at the UN is acting like children here. They’re putting lives at risk for their own petty reasons.

      • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
        -4•1 month ago

        Because the UN obviously failed to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah were planning to use the weapons the UN failed to take from to attack Israel in a similar way (but on a larger scale) to October 7.

        The Peacekeepers failed to keep the peace. Hezbollah has been firing rockets (which according to the UN, they shouldn’t have) at Israel for a year. Many times at civilian population centers.

        There is no reason for Peacekeepers to stay in a war zone.

          • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
            -1•1 month ago

            That’s good for you to admit that Hamas, Hezbollahand the Houthis are attacking Israel. Making progress!

            So your main issue is that you want war to be fair, like it’s a sport? It’s not a sport, people die in wars. Making it fair just means it drags out longer causing more loss of life.

            That graph also indicated that Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are outmatched and should give up on trying to defeat Israel on a battle field. They should put down their weapons and sit down at a negotiating table. They aren’t going to get everything they want (that’s the nature of negotiation) but they’d get something and people don’t have to needlessly die in their futile wars. And the longer they fight the less they’ll get in any kind of peace.

            You’ve just proven the stupidity of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”. But these are fascist strongman “blood and soil” type movements and those type of movements are known for their stupidity resulting in their destruction.

            • @Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              1•1 month ago

              Yes, people under the violence of Occupation, Settler Colonialism, and Apartheid are bound to fight back by any means possible, regardless of the difference in military capability. Israel has been the one that has prevented peace for generations. Made all the more obvious when they assassinate the principal negotiator of peace talks.

              Settlements, Occupation, and Apartheid

              Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.

              This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.

              The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:

              Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:

              While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements

              The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.

              The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.

              Visualizing the Ethnic Cleansing

              Peace Process and Solution

              Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution

              How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution

              ‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe

              One State Solution, Foreign Affairs

              Hamas proposed a full prisoner swap as early as Oct 8th, and agreed to the US proposed UN Permanent Ceasefire Resolution. Additionally, Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.

              During the current war, Hamas officials have said that the group does not want to return to ruling Gaza and that it advocates for forming a government of technocrats to be agreed upon by the various Palestinian factions. That government would then prepare for elections in Gaza and the West Bank, with the intention of forming a unified government.

              • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
                -1•1 month ago

                Yes, people under the violence of Occupation, Settler Colonialism, and Apartheid are bound to fight back by any means possible, regardless of the difference in military capability.

                If you engage in genocidal acts like what occurred on October 7, whatever justification for it is moot. The world cannot allow for genocide to be a successful tactic.

                Stop trying to rationalize genocide, ok? It’s an evil way to think about things. Hamas cannot be allowed to achieve any kind of success after what they did. Otherwise others will try the same. In fact Hezbollah was planning something similar to October 7 just from the propaganda successes Hamas achieved. Is that what you wanted?

    • @shaserlark@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3•1 month ago

      You’re being downvoted on every post you do about this topic, you’ve been here for a year and you know that pretty much nobody agrees with you. I’m really wondering what’s your agenda.

      • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
        -5•1 month ago

        Thanks for noticing!

        Also the things I’m saying is consistent with what a majority of people outside of this little echo chamber think. This group you’re in is going descending in a downward spiral of hatred. People in the same hatred spiral you’re in have already committed violent acts, and more have attempted violence. This hatred of Israel will not lead to anything positive. Nothing good for the Palestinian people will come from this hatred.

        I see photos of Gaza and I see a lot of similarity with the photos of German cities at the end of WWII. Germans were so indoctrinated in the politics of hatred (the same politics people here are engaging in) that the refused to accept defeat even when it was obvious to anyone. So they fought to the bitter end for the politics they were too indoctrinated in to accept reality and it destroyed their country.

        Unlike the German people, I fear that because of outside pressure Palestinians may not be able to escape the politics of hatred even after they’ve experienced the destruction it lead to. Too much outside pressure on Palestinians (primarily from Iran, but you can see it even in the rhetoric here) to continue dying for the interests of others rather than negotiating with Israel to get as much as they can for themselves.

        The real tragedy of this is that even if there was a ceasefire agreement tomorrow, a conflict similar to this will probably happen again for the next generation. It won’t be because of people like me that call for Hamas to surrender. It’ll be because of the people like you that “disagree with me” who push for Arabs to continue dying to serve the interests of Iranians.

        Someone has to tell the truth around here, no matter how unpopular it may be.